5 Steps to Using Social Media for Lead Generation

Why is it advantageous to use social media as a lead generation tool?

Yesterday we talked about a new way of thinking for the marketing professional… thinking of your customers as people first. So why does this matter? Why is it beneficial to start communicating directly to your consumer base in a peer-to-peer environment instead of mass marketing?

In my opinion… the sell can be made easier.

We (business professionals) are all searching for ways to better market to our consumer base. How can you be creative and produce advertising that will catch the attention of a passerby? How can you create a brochure that will pull people into the folds and sell them on a product? Using social media can help bring the guard down of a consumer. We all exist in walled gardens… holding our purse strings tight to our chest. It is very rare that anyone or anything will ever get into our mind to sell us on a process. We tend to listen to our peers more than anything else.

Social media (especially blogs) can help in building trust between an individual and a brand. Let’s use social media to build that trust.

1. Tell customer and personal stories on your blog. If you currently have a blog for your company be very sure that you are telling stories and not regurgitating industry information. How are you setting yourself apart from your competition? You are more likely to garner leads (in the long term) if you are telling stories with personality and flair. People will latch on and relate with stories about other customers.

2. Utilize LinkedIN now and forever. LinkedIN is a powerful tool. If used correctly it can open up huge potential for networking with like minded individuals. Your current customers and likely to be connect to other individuals that could be powerful referral sources for you. Do not underestimate the power of your current customers.

For more tips on using LinkedIN: 10 Ways to Use LinkedIN,

3. Connect to a Local Social Network. In Indiana we are extremely blessed to have the local networking site of Smaller Indiana. Smaller Indiana has over 7000 professionals across the state who are willing to talk, debate, and share information among each other. We have used SI to connect to hundreds of individuals and business owners. By sharing in experience and then connecting offline you have a great opportunity to build trust.

4. Track local users on Twitter. If you are currently using Twitter to share information it is extremely important to connect with potential customers in your area of influence (Do you see a trend forming here?) You have the ability to search over different keywords while using Twitter. If a user is talking about a topic that is central to your business… communicate with them!

5. Encourage Your Peers to Share. One of the more powerful parts of social media is the ability to share content over a wide-spread group of people. Encourage your connections, customers, and friends to spread your story out across the masses.

You should always keep traditional marketing in the mix whenever possible. Social media is not the end all of the marketing kingdom. However, the tool will give you the ability to connect with individuals on a completely different level… building trust… and eventually the sale… in the process.

5 Ways to Track Your Competitors Using Social Media

My post on Tuesday talked about the growing trend of social media being used in order to gain more lead generation and marketing potential in businesses across the nation. You are going to need to be online. You are going to need to have a voice in this world of social communication.

Can we talk about another reason to be on social media? Are your competitors using it? This should be a deciding factor in whether or not you get involved. So where do you start? The first thing is to investigate.

1. Sign up for an account at Competitious.

Competitious is a cool tool that allows you to track, organize, and solidify data from your competition. Right now the beta is a free account… jump on over… sign up and try the tool. It also allows you to share and collaborate on different forms of data internally inside of your company.

2. Use the search tool SocialMention.

SocialMention is a keyword based search engine that aggregates different forms on content from across the web. You can search on microblogs, blogs, comments, events, and images (to name a few). Receive free daily email alerts of your brand, company, CEO, marketing campaign, or on a developing news story, a competitor, or the latest on a celebrity.

3. Google Alerts never hurt anyone.

Google Alerts is an awesome tool that allows you to sign up for… you guessed it… email alerts when a keyword is used in any type of content on the web. I have setup keyword alerts for Indianapolis social media, social media, Kyle Lacy, Brandswag, Twitter Marketing, and corporate social media. Check out this tutorial on how to use Google Alerts.

4. Do some investi-ma-gative journalism.

This should probably be step number one but it seems pretty simple… go to their website. If they are using social media in the right way they should be listing the tools in which they use. Follow them… feed them.. watch them. You could learn a ton from the way they share information.

5. Use HubSpot to track down the competition.

Hubspot has plenty of tools that allow you to track and influence different levels of your competitors use of social media. They give you the ability to track conversations online and hook up with different influencers in your industry. This is a paid service but it can extremely beneficial to the long term success of winning over the competition.

Get out there and listen to the net!

Are there any tools you have used? I would love to hear more!

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Defining Change As An Individual

I found this amazing example of kinetic typography last night and it created an idea that is not new… but needs to be rehearsed and rewritten hundreds if not thousands of times. Do we fully understand the power we have as an individual? Do we fully understand the power we have as a community of individuals?

I am not speaking of change in a political sense but change in a single… solitary way… a change in individuality that has the power to spread across the many platforms of communication afforded to us.

Smaller Indiana is just one example in the many different platforms that allow your individuality to shine through… the many platforms the allow for ONE person to make a change that could empower thousands of people toward the same goal.

“In my observation it is you that creates the change by challenging your own individuality…creating that positive atmosphere for yourself and every person surrounded by your presence. And in the end it is all in simple action… whether it is conducting by individuals as a whole or just by one person.”

Because of the tools afforded to us by the Internet and technology… we have the ability to spread our own message to hundreds of thousands of people…

What is YOUR message? Are you challenging it?

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When Should Business Engage in Social Media

The marketing and technology world is on fire with this new form of communication: social media. And yes… I did mean to say new. Many in the corporate and small business world have yet to set foot into this new communication platform. This is hard for many social media advocates to grasp. How could the business world not be ENTIRELY tuned in to the growing social avalanche that is happening in their front yard?

In truth… social media is not really in their front yard at all… more like an alley down the street… waiting to be swept up by an avalanche of customer opinion and buying patterns. We are talking about a flood gate collecting a force that will… soon… explode.

We are still in the infancy of social media adoption across a wide spread of the globe.

This is in no way degrading the idea that the tools of social media will not be a main form of communication in the years to come… we are just not there yet.

We (the business world) are going to see a significant change in how consumers buy and communicate with brands in the years to come. We will see a wide-spread use of social media tools in both the Internet and mobile environments.

So what should the business world do when debating the use of social media for communication and lead generation?

Take it from the words of Jay Baer at Convince and Convert:

“Social media is about fundamentally changing the dynamic between brands and their customers. From master and servant, to peer to peer.”

Now is the time to educate on how to effectively use the tools. Do not listen to a social media expert when they tell you that you MUST be using the tools. You must be educating on how to best use the tools and how they are applicable to your growth as a company.  PERIOD.

Yes… there will come a time when the Internet will unleash the flood gates of 60 even 70 percent of the globe… one unified community of customers, products, services, and brands…

The question is… will you be ready when your front yard is flooded… or not?

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Baby Boomer’s Should Listen to Gen Y in Tech

We (Brandswag) have regular conversations with the good folks over at the Taylor MBA program. They are a great school and are always in tune and up-to-date with changes in communication technology. Taylor MBA’s head honcho, Larry Rottmeyer, forwarded me an article from the Havard Business Review names Let Gen Y Teach Teach. The article is about older generations finding a younger mentor.

This is a new concept to me. In pre and post college years you are told constantly to find older mentors who have the ability to guide you through the difficult parts of life and business. I am a huge advocate of the younger generations finding mentors. I would not be where I am today without the guidance of some key people in my life. That point… is for certain.

Time Warner has decided to take the lead on a reverse mentoring program which gives younger individuals the chance to mentor the older generation.

I find it fascinating that this conversation is taking place among the business and technology elite around the globe. There should always be a give and take relationship when it comes to a mentoring position… both young and old. This gives the younger generation (my generation) the ability to show their skills in things that may be deemed as unnecessary to some…in the older generations.

The fact is… technology is going to change the face of how we do business… it happens in every generation. It is comforting to know some are taking a valiant leap towards learning more about the world of communication technology.

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Balancing Client and Social Interactions in Social Media

I was recently asked by Duncan Alney from Firebelly Digital on a recent Hoosier PRSA blog post to detail how I balance client interaction with social interaction in the social media realm. Here is the question:

“BTW Kyle – perhaps you should share with those that don’t know – how you balance client and your own social media interactions. I know how you do it (now) but clearly – there are others that are dying to know ”

With such a great question posed how could I not answer it? Duncan is a great guy and an awesome social media advocate. I would encourage you to check out the blog over at Firebelly.

I am going to take a stab at this question and form my own opinion on what Duncan meant by client and social media interactions. The idea of being able to balance personal social experience with client lead generation is a valuable commodity when using social media. It is extremely hard in the long run to balance both without taking to much time in both categories. I would venture to say that you shouldn’t try and balance the two… they should be intertwined.

Time is a huge commodity when using social media. How do you take the time to truly use social media without wasting the day away… because we all know… time is money. When the importance of productivity is realized

The social world is beginning to change the way consumers look at brands. Are they viewing the brand as a logo or as an experience? In my humble opinion… the user is viewing the brand as a person… as an experience… as an extension to their daily lives.

I use social media to show my personal side… to show that life is revolving around more than just a balance sheet, an income statement, and an accounts receivable report. Social media is about giving a perspective into the daily lives of the individuals that make up a company. People buy from people and the importance of showing more than just a product is being lost by many individuals using the communication systems provided on the Internet.

When writing a blog, using Facebook, or connecting on LinkedIN… you should be making it a point to deliver a half/half balance of life as well as business. Your potential clients want to know about your knowledge in your given industry but they also want to know about your daily routine… what makes you tick.

I try to balance the two by using Facebook as my social interaction tool and my blog as my business side of my life. How do you balance the two? Do you even try to balance the two?

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Should a Not-for-Profit use Twitter?

The first step in utilizing a social tool like Twitteris to understand the human element in relation to social media. The human element can be referred to as an underlying form of authenticity when using social tools for communication. When consulting with a company, I tend to recommend two separate accounts. You should always have social media tools for your personal life, which could be separate from your business. There are (of course) different argument for both accounts.We can go into that at a later date.

When a person is seeking out information on your company they want two things concrete information (hard data, contact info, about us, etc) and the human element (owner, employee, company mission, etc). Twitter, not to mention every other social media outlet, gives you the opportunity to show a more human side to your business/organization.

Next step: Just try it out. Start an organization Twitter account (ie. Comcastcares). Search for people in your area and start following. See what happens.

Put some HUMAN into your COMPANY. Believe me, it is worth it.

After all, an empty, heartless logo is the last thing a donor will give money.

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Ian Gertler from sympledages made an interesting comment after I published  my post last night about outsourcing social media. He said that internal evangelists are key to a successful social media strategy. The idea in itself is enough to stew over. What does it mean to have internal evangelists? What does it mean to have a team that is obsessed with creating the best company, products, and services imaginable… on the face of the planet?

Internal evangelists are individuals who love the idea of your company. They love what they do and make it a point to tell as many people as possible about the company brand. I am extremely lucky to have such a team at Brandswag and there is a big reason why these individuals are so powerful… they create the story.

Internal evangelists are the people that will make a social media strategy infectious to the external population yearning for new content about your product or service. They are the individuals who will stand up and scream your ideas from the heavens… a chorus of fans who love what they do and love the brand they represent.

Be very sure that you have the internal evangelists in place before implementing a social media strategy. The road will always be narrow… but trust me… the burden will be lite.

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Is Outsourcing Social Media Okay?

I have been debating for many moons on the topic of outsourcing your use of social media. I will be completely honest with you… I have not come to a conclusion. We have been through the process of completing projects for clients where we supported all the content creation and “fed” all of the social networks. The goal was to create a mass interest in a specific topic. There were some that worked but the majority of them failed. It was hard to look at a failing project that used the tools I loved so much.

What went wrong?

In the majority of the failed projects it was the issue of emotional empowerment behind a message. It was hard for an outsourced contractor to take the view of the actually company. It was hard for us to replicate the ideas and aspirations of another company without being intimately involved in the daily routine. This ultimately led to the creation of education and training materials to be used internally by corporations.

Implementing a successful social media strategy is inherently connected to the daily routine. Take Zappos for example: by empowering employees to tweet about their daily routine and add in information about the company… they found extreme success by creating a HUMAN identity (more about that later).

I am not going to sit here and condemn the act of ghost blogging. I can look at numerous examples where ghost blogging has worked to some extent. If you can find a company that intimately understands your emotional tie between your company, products, message, and services it may be an easy fit.  I do, however, condemn the act of ghost Twittering (more on that later).

In reality, the best social media communication is done by owners and employees. If you love what you do it shouldn’t be hard to scream to the heavens about your daily routine.

It is all tied to education. Educate yourself and your team on how to use the tools effectively and productively. If education and training are done the right way (with a great strategy)… you will see an increase in brand awareness and customer support without having to spend thousands of marketing dollars on outsourced implementation.

Although, it doesn’t hurt to have support it is important that YOU have a vested interest in the promotion.

What do you think? Is social media outsourcing a viable strategy?

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Iggy Pintado’s Connection Generation Review

Many of you may be connected to Iggy Pintado on Twitter: @iggypintado. He is a brilliant marketer, genius at generational marketing, and ex-IBM executive out of Australia. If you are not following him… take a second and do it. You will not regret the decision.

Iggy was kind enough to send me his book, Connection Generation, to read and contemplate. I must admit… I have had the book for a couple of months and just had the time to sit down and read it from front to back. It is awesome. I really did enjoy reading about the different levels of communication from a generational standpoint. There is going (it is happening now) a huge shift in the way people communicate over the next decade. Iggy’s book helps break down the ideas and trends that may be hurting/helping the way WE communicate in the future.

I love how Iggy breaks a part the idea of the Passive Connector.

“Passives have an understanding of communication and connection applications but choose not to prioritize them in practice as part of their day-to-day regiments. They possess a very theoretical view of the word “connection,” manifested in their frame of reference as being more CONCEPTUAL interpretation. They visualize connection as a puzzle… a connect the dots.”

The book help me pinpoint some of the ways I am communicate my overall marketing message to different individuals in the professional environment. I didn’t quite realize (to my fault) that each person has a different level of understanding when it comes to the idea of connecting.

That is just a small snippet of what I found valuable in the book. I am already starting to apply some of the ideas from the book to the way we sell, talk, and promote social media to potential clients.

Go to the website and read about the book. You will not regret it and I recommend it.

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